Wind Age, Wolf Age
by Doneril
Summary: Two men meet in a train station in the south of England.


Title: Wind-age, Wolf-age

Author: Doneril

Summary: Two men meet in a train station in the south of England.

Author's Note: This piece is based on the Norse mythology regarding Ragnarok, the time

of the death of the gods. Baldur, a god of shining light, was killed by his blind brother, when Loki, a trickster god, gave the unknowing brother the only weapon which could kill Baldur. After Baldur's death, Ragnarok was pretty inevitable. Ragnarok was marked by the destruction of the Bifrost Bridge (a rainbow) and Fenrir (Loki's son, a great wolf) swallowing the sun and killing Odin All-Father, among other cataclysmic events.

Inspiration: from _The Seeress' Prophecy:_

_Garm bays loudly before Gnipa-cave,_

_the rope will break and the ravener run free,_

_much wisdom she knows, I see further ahead_

_to the terrible doom of the fighting gods._

_Brother will fight brother and be his slayer,_

_brother and sister will violate the bond of kinship;_

_hard it is in the world, there is much adultery,_

_axe-age, sword-age, shields are cleft asunder,_

_wind-age, wolf-age, before the world plunges headlong;_

_no man will spare another._

Dead

Dead

_They are dead and they are gone and there is no having them back._

He was sitting in a small train station in the south of England, no matter which one, they were all the same, he had seen them too many times with too many names for them to make any difference to him. In his bag, he had pictures. They waved and smiled and their names were inscribed on the back – Mama, Peter, James, Lily, Sirius, Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail, Dumbledore, Albus, Percy, Bill, Emmeline, the names went on like a roster of the damned, too damned many – like so many portable tombstones.

His hair was greying and he had crow's feet around his eyes. He was no more the young wolf in the pictures than Prongs was alive. That made no difference, though. It had been a long time and he was simply waiting for the end now. They were dead and buried and he was only waiting for someone to dig his grave, too cowardly, too loving, too wild to dig his own.

The man he had waited for was more interested in the picture that had fallen from his pocket.

"You said you had forgotten about him."

He looked at the photograph. Dark hair in the wind and laughter in a smile; he remembered when the picture had been taken. Hellhound had replaced dire wolf and the sun had shown with ease: no mere dog could swallow the chariot of fire and make the skies turn black in mourning. The man, the hound, the shape-shifter was gone now, passed beyond the veil – oh the irony in that, and the muted, distant pain – and could no longer save him from his begetter, the one bound by cats' paws who would be loosed upon the world when their betters fought.

"He is dead, by the hand of family. He died fighting."

"Then he has his own avengers."

He nodded, slowly. He knew this well, just as he knew his curse and the pains that so rarely fell upon his kind. His companion – his kin, his sire, his mother and father in one – had promised respite, which even the hound of Hel could not match in his better days.

"They have taken away your spirit, pup. When I first saw you, you fought more."

It was a strong rebuke, but he had no reply. He had no family. He had no friends. They were lost, they were dead, they were gone, and their dead eyes watched him from their tombstones.

"We will have our battle soon. We will win."

Wolf eyes met wolf eyes. Two men alike knew that they would see the skies turn black and the rainbow fall to earth. He felt in his heart that he could not stop it; it was ordained.

"We kill them, we kill ourselves."

There was a laugh that was more like a howl, the howl that called the wolves together to hunt. "Albus fell and Severus is damned."

"He did not guide his own hand… I don't see how this happened." _It all seems so preordained._

"They fall like so many dominoes… I have been promised the flesh of the boy, before he dies, that he may know the pain and the suffering that we live with. He will die soon, die slowly – we have been promised!"

He did not know what to think. No matter who spoke, he saw death in the cards and it was not only his despair. The wolf would swallow the sun, the great ones would fall at one another's hands, and the world would need to be reborn in a new image. There were no places in it for the fighting men of the old regime. He could fall in battle – it mattered not which side – or he could fall alone.

He hoped that someone would carry his tombstone in a bag someday.


End file.
